


midnight confessions

by onceuponanevilangel



Category: Conviction (TV 2016)
Genre: Dark Past, F/F, Pre-Relationship, hayes and harper's relationship was never good, tess is very much in heart eyes with hayes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:03:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8268563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponanevilangel/pseuds/onceuponanevilangel
Summary: Tess and Hayes share a quiet moment after hours.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The characters literally aren't even listed on the AO3 menu yet. We need to fix that and I'm just here doing my part.
> 
> Trigger Warning for mentions of past mistreatment. Spoilers for episode 2.

“Is something wrong with your wrist?”

Hayes looked up at the sound of Tess’s voice, soft and tinged with concern. She suddenly became hyperaware of the fact that she was rubbing her own wrist and set both her hands on the tabletop.

“No, of course not,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

They were the only two left in the darkened office going through the boxes upon boxes of cases that the ADAs’ staff had been dropping off over the past two weeks. Hayes reached for a file, but Tess sat down in the chair next to her and slid the folder just out of reach.

“I don’t want to pry or anything, but considering you dug into my old case, I think I have a right to ask this once.”

“It’s nothing,” Hayes repeated with noticeably less conviction this time.  She tapped her nails nervously on the table and tried her best to keep eye contact with Tess, but she could feel her eyes starting to burn and she had to look away.

“You’ve been quiet since the decision yesterday and at first I thought it was just everything that happened with Zadie, but I have to ask, Hayes, did…did something happen at the prison yesterday?”

Hayes was silent.

“Did Brian hurt you?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Hayes said. Her hand crept back to her wrist and she rubbed at the skin almost like she was trying to hold it still. Tess waited for a long moment until she was almost sure she wasn’t going to get another response, but then Hayes spoke again. “But he did grab my wrist.” Hayes paused and bit her lip. “I don’t like people grabbing me there.”

“Can I see?” Tess asked gently.

Hayes’s nose was starting to twitch like she was going to cry and Tess was almost sure that she was overstepping her boundaries, but Hayes didn’t move away and after a long pause, she let go of her own wrist and rested it palm-up on the table in front of Tess.

“My, um…when I was little and I did something wrong, my mother would, um…”

“She grabbed you there?” Tess asked.

Hayes didn’t say anything; she just sniffed and blinked back the tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’m not going to grab you, I promise,” Tess said, looking to Hayes for permission before she went any further. Hayes nodded, but kept her eyes fixed on Tess’s hands as Tess gently placed her fingers on the inside of Hayes’s wrist. “Okay?”

Hayes nodded again.

“You’re fine, see? It’s okay.”

Tess looked up and met Hayes’s eyes. Silent tears were streaming down her face and her lower lip was trembling as she fought to keep it under control. Tess was pretty sure that she was massively overstepping her bounds, but before she could stop herself, she reached up and brushed a stray lock of hair behind Hayes’s ear.

“Nobody can hurt you here,” Tess said quietly.

Hayes nodded and sniffled, before she suddenly seemed to come back to herself and scrambled for the tissue box that Tess slid over for her.

“God, look at me,” Hayes said. “I’m a mess and here we were supposed to be making less work for ourselves in the morning and I – “

“No, no, it’s my fault,” Tess said quickly. She stood up and pulled one of the bankers’ boxes closer to her. “I pried and I shouldn’t have done that. You’re entitled to your privacy and – “

Tess was stopped by a perfectly manicured hand coming to rest gently on her wrist and she turned to meet Hayes’s eyes.

Hayes’s eye makeup was smeared in tiny tear tracks along her cheeks and her red lipstick was smudged and feathered around the edges of her lips. She looked so different close up than she did on the glossy pages of the magazines that Tess had spent her teen years pouring over, but she found that she liked this Hayes far better than the magazine version.

“No. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Hayes said as firmly as her shaky voice would allow.

Maybe it was just Tess’s imagination, but she could have sworn that Hayes’s gaze flitted briefly down to her lips. It almost seemed like Hayes was getting just a little bit closer, but Tess looked down and took a step back.

“You know what? It’s getting late. I should really get home.” She started gathering her things and neatening the stacks of files for the morning. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Y-yeah,” Hayes said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tess offered a nervous half-smile and a little wave before she started to leave.

“Hey, Tinkerbell, wait a second.”

Tess stopped and spun back around to face Hayes.

“Thanks,” Hayes said. She shoved her hands into her pockets and glanced down before meeting Tess’s eyes again. “For, um…just…thank you.”

 “Anytime.”

There was a tiny part of Tess that didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay with Hayes and make sure that she was okay, but she had done enough pushing of boundaries for one night. With a heavy sigh, she hefted her bag and turned on her heel, hurrying out of the office before Hayes or her own brain could stop her.


End file.
